i do know that when I played when I was younger when i played for two teams a week in my teens and early/mid twentys I played twice a week and never got an injury - yet late twentys when kids came along and I played once a month I picked up pulled hamstrings, snapped achilles and various dead legs. i think poor preparation and poor training facilities is a much, much larger contibutor to our injuries than too many games - should we stop training?

you could obviously extract the argument to the nth degree the other way. for example if o'neil had played the game before villa last season and picked up a knock which ruled him out of the villa game so that reo-coker couldn't take him out then he wouldn't have been out for 9 months

so i don't believe the injury stuff

what i do believe is that you can either take the cup seriously or you can use it as an opportunity to find out about a couple of players by blending them into the side. we could have played our first choice team and dropped nolan to see how noble and collison got on together. we could have played baldock and hall off cole. we could have tried 3-5-2. we didn't try anything like that - we changed the side so much that any performance was immediately invalid and we learnt nothing about whether collison can indeed play decent in centre attacking mid without nolan etc, etc. those who went have ripped into carew - but carew and sam will instantly say he had no service. sorry but even if you don't care about the cup it is a massive shame to not use the game more usefully - even if it were to build up some intra-team understanding

Yes, good idea .The club and it's Manager had it's "priorities" straight that year .

James P wrote:TPP, when we played Pompey in the league barely 48hrs before the 2006 Cup Quarter Final at Man City, do you think we should have sent out a full strength team?

Yes, subject to players not being injured .I understand the sports science argument - it's the one used by PL Managers to pull players out of England friendlies - they rustle up graphs showing players are tired and convince them not to represent their country .I simply do not believe the players rested on Sunday all had identical profiles in that regard.This was no more than the Manager deciding not to play those players because he doesn't trust the depth of his squad in case they got injured by a poor challange , not because they needed a legitimate rest .

Faubert and Nolan have played once since boxing day .

Green, bless him, must have been exhausted .The Manager, incredibly, attributes our defeat to a keeper error .Oh how Boffin must be filled with Joy .

If we had made a cup final but were fighting relegation from the PL would you field a weak team at Wembley ( cup final no longer being the final game in a season due to CL) to protect players from getting injured , and have them miss a cup final ?

How many players would forgive you for that ?

Come and sign for West Ham United, the club that removes the Wembley dream from a players heart .........not the best pitch for signing players is it ?

Jon wrote:I would say many injuries these days are caused by players being almost too fit, too muscle bound. Every sinew is being stretched to the max. Now if only they worked on their passing a bit more...

I reckon that's a very good point. I'd liken a modern player to a Formula One engine, balanced on the knife-edge between ultimate performance and disaster.A player back in the '80s, fuelled by steak and chips, is more like a rally car engine, in a higher state of tune than your average Escort and able to perform much better but not *that* far removed.

The relegation / cup final would promote a bit of debate actually. I think common sense would dictate a full strength side for both games though.

The point I was trying to make though is that there are clearly times where you have to rest players due to more pressing games on the horizon. You don't simply play your best eleven every week until it breaks and then plug the gaps. Just because a fan's priorities don't match those chosen by the clubs, doesn't mean having priorities is wrong.

Squad rotation is a completely legitimate tactic employed by successful clubs. It doesn't say you pick your strongest team for every game. It says you pick teams which allow you to get the greatest set of results over an entire season of games. I agree players were shielded from injury on Sunday rather than given a rest, but I think that is entirely acceptable and sensible just as leaving players out of the league for the cup was acceptable and sensible in a completely different set of circumstances six years ago.

Thought he was taking the piss giving it to Nobes but at least he's one of us eh?

But today I get not even an apology for being dumped out of the cup. I was brought up on hoping for a cup run. ****, I was lucky enough to be at wembley to see us beat arsenal. Thats what I sell the dream on to my kids.

carnage wrote:PPCan you tell me the last time we played a full strength team in the 1st round of a Cup competition?

Short answer . No .

A week from now I won't remember the starting line up yesterday .I know fans have different opinions on this - ask any Gooner if they were unhappy seeing Henry play ( and score) tonight as opposed to RvP ?

Not one would vote to have seen RvP, even though, these days he would be the better option .

You might have got a different answer had he missed a sitter , and Arsenal go another year without a trophy .

What's is quite funny is when you look back at the start of this thread there are people who stuck up their preferred line-ups and there were some with barely a player over 18 in them. I remember laughing. I might have to go back and see if any of those people criticised Sams selection.

carnage wrote:What's is quite funny is when you look back at the start of this thread there are people who stuck up their preferred line-ups and there were some with barely a player over 18 in them. I remember laughing. I might have to go back and see if any of those people criticised Sams selection.